PRESENTACIÓN DE RESULTADOS DE FLUJOS DE POTENCIA AÑO

the deterioration of Anglo-German relations at a time when the war was still at its height; “I consider the danger great and serious that the two great nations should become so far irritated against one another as to be unable to bring it right again and hostility grow out of estrangement. Please warn the dear King and Fritz and e v e r y o n e . O n l y one month later, she wrote directly to the Prussian King that it was “necessary for the happiness and peace of Europe that United Germany should come to a friendly understanding with Britain.” However, the siege of Paris and the resulting pro-French sympathies of parts of the politically interested British nation convinced Queen Victoria that “the two nations really do not understand each other at all,”^^^ and she expressed her despair that “the feeling here towards Prussia is as bitter as it can be. It is a great grief to me.”^^^ Despite this public notion, the Queen insisted in a letter to William I that “our two nations will step nearer again; and that soon the temporary discord, created through misunderstandings and lack of a right judgment of the two nations, and some unlucky circumstances, will vanish!”^^* Once the war was over, the new German Empire was indeed welcomed by the Times, which labeled this new nation a “great and novel a State” (31 December 1870).

Taking into account that the process of creating the German Empire was exactly what Prince Albert had envisaged ten years earlier, it would have been understandable had Queen Victoria now remembered the observations of her late

17 November 1870 Queen Victoria to the Queen of Prussia. Found in: Geheimes PreuBisches Staatsarchiv, BPH, Rep.51, Lit.E (Merseburg), nr.3, documents 404-9. The letter can also be found in: Hibbert (ed.). Queen Victoria in her letters and ioumals. p.222, but he must have used a different source as his wording of the letter is different from die one held at Berlin. The last sentence of the quotation was in German; translation by the author.

18 December 1870 Queen Victoria to the King of Prussia. In; Bolitho (ed ). Further letters of Queen Victoria, p. 182.

18 January 1871 Queen Victoria to the Empress of Germany. Found in: Geheimes PreuBisches Staatsarchiv, BPH, Rep.51, Lit.E, (Merseburg), nr.3, documents 426-30. Translation by the author.

1 March 1871 Queen Victoria to the Crown Princess of Germany. In: Fulford (ed ), Your dear letter. p.321.

20 March 1871 Queen Victoria to the Emperor of Germany. Found in: Geheimes PreuBisches Staatsarchiv, BPH, Rep.51, J Britain III a, fasc.2 (Merseburg), documents 68-70. Translation by the author.

husband. However, it was in fact the Prussian Crown Prince Frederick William who stated that “I cannot help (...) thinking a great deal of the plans of my late father-in- law (...). the notion of a free German Imperial State, that in the true sense of the world, so that through German influence the rest of the world should be humanized, manners ennobled.” Queen Victoria, on the other hand, realized that, had Albert lived, “he would have suffered cruelly from many inevitable things which have taken

place and which he never would have approved.” As a consequence, she

abandoned the perpetuation of Prince Albert’s views with regard to Britain’s foreign policy and formed her own beliefs, based on the actual political development, from now on; however, this process of intellectual independence from her late husband’s thoughts did not include the emotional side, since the Queen’s personal grief about Albert’s loss continued until the end of her life.

VI-7: Ro y a l m a r r i a g e s IV

The 1860s and 1870s saw a decisive change in the significance of royal marriages from being politically important decisions to reflecting the social development of the nation. The marriages of Princess Alice to Prince Louis of Hesse and of the Prince of Wales to Princess Alexandra of Denmark had been arranged by Prince Albert, and Queen Victoria followed these decisions meticulously. However, she did not approve of Princess Alexandra’s Danish background, an attitude which stood in sharp contrast to the view of the politically interested parts of British society, since the Princess of Wales was very popular in Britain. One reason for this acceptance was certainly the sympathy many Britons felt for Denmark during the war of 1864. This political motivation was also an explanation for the general approval of Princess Helena’s marriage to Prince Christian of Schleswig-Holstein-Augustenburg,

since his brother had lost his possessions after the Convention of Gastein, which was regarded as an unjust settlement in Britain. As a consequence, from this marriage connection onwards, the Queen’s perception corresponded with Britain’s public opinion. This was certainly the case with Princess Louise’s marriage, since Queen

24 October 1870 Extract from the diary of the Crown Prince of Prussia. In: A.R.Allinson (ed). The war diary of the Emperor Frederick III. 1870-1871 (London, 1927), p. 168.

3 September 1872 Queen Victoria to the Crown Princess of Germany. In: Hibbert (ed.). Queen Victoria in her letters and ioumals. p.229.

VI: Continuity in grief 158